Minnesota’s Largest Abandoned Airport
If you’ve never heard of Silver Bay, Minnesota, you’re not alone. Nestled about halfway up the Minnesota shore of Lake Superior, Silver Bay is a town of about 2,000 residents, deep in tourism and cabin country. During the summer, it’s a hotspot for hikers, campers, and vacationers looking for a weekend on the lake. In the Autumn, hunters from all over come to the Northwoods, seeking deer, bears, and other small game. Come winter, the area turns into a haven for cross country skiing. What really fuels the economy of Silver Bay is taconite. Taconite is a low-grade iron ore composed primarily of iron-bearing minerals, which is crushed, processed, and turned into pellets for use in steelmaking. Minnesota is home to the largest taconite mines in the country, and Lake Superior, being connected to the ocean via the other Great Lakes, is a key shipping out point. Northshore Mining , operated by Cleveland-Cliffs Inc, runs a massive taconite processing plant in Silver Bay, where the taconite can be loaded onto ocean liners and sailed anywhere in the world.
Though the area around Silver Bay has been inhabited by the Anishinaabe indigenous people for thousands of years, Silver Bay as a town was only formed in 1954, to support the nearby taconite mines.
The airport was finally named Silver Bay Municipal in the early 1990s, and was a popular GA destination. People often flew up from Minneapolis to spend a weekend on the lake. According to Minnesota Department of Transportation data, the airport saw about 3,300 operations annually, on average.
The Minnesota weather is rough on pavement of all kinds, including airport runways. Normally, the fees pilots pay for airport services are enough to sustain normal repairs, but declining traffic to the airport made it so that there wasn’t enough money for the repairs without state or federal intervention. In 2015, the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MNDOT) commissioned an economic impact study of the airport, to see if an investment of hundreds of thousands of dollars for “facilities upgrades” (including pavement work) was worth it. The study found that the airport’s economic impact was minimal, generating $96,256 the year for the region.
The airport was not eligible for state or federal grants, and so the City of Silver Bay started working $35,000 into their yearly budget to pay for minimal repairs to keep the airport afloat. But, the airport kept deteriorating and traffic declined. The city had other priorities. Silver Bay Mayor Scott Johnson told the Duluth News Tribune that “I’ve got 20 some miles of 50-year old road. Don’t you think I should spend some maintenance on that instead of the airport?”
In 2017, the FAA deemed the airport unsafe and required the airport to fix the pavement before traffic could resume or face $10,000 in fines every day the airport kept operating, according to the American Experiment (I couldn’t independently verify these numbers, and the American Experiment is a conservative think tank, not a news organization, so keep that in mind).
In June 2018, the Department of Transportation revoked the airport’s operating certificate, and the city stopped investing money into it, officially closing it. “A key reason for the airport closure was the sizable cracks that have opened up,” a 17-page MnDOT report states. “They are large enough to cause significant shock to an aircraft and a small aircraft could become lodged creating a hazard to aircraft.” The state Congress offered a last minute, $770,000 bailout that would require payback, which the city declined.
Since then, the airport has sat in decay.
I have a cabin just about 15 minutes from the airport. The airport is public property, and after a quick call to the sheriff’s office, I confirmed that I could actually go onto the field and look around. That’s what I did this summer.
The airport is off the highway on a small gravel road. There’s a simple office (abandoned) and parking lot. It’s tucked away in the woods, surrounded by a small patch of prairie. If you’re wondering, the person in the yellow sweater is my sister with my dog.
The ramp area is actually not in horrible shape. It’s just an open space. You can see a few tire tracks. The sheriff’s deputy I talked to told me that this is a popular spot for teenagers to do donuts and stunts with their cars. It’s also apparently a popular spot for people to do target practice with cans and on the side of the abandoned FBO, evidenced by the bullet holes and shell casings. There were a couple of empty propane tanks off to the side, which looked at least 20 years old. Other than that, pretty empty.
There’s a single runway here, 25-7. It’s about 3,000 feet long. On the 25 end, there’s a collection of old aircraft parts off in the grass (looks like some doors and tires). We decided to walk the length of the runway. It’s actually quite scenic. It seems to be a popular spot of deer and turkeys.
The taxiway from the ramp to the runway is definitely showing its age. There’s a lot of cracks with grass growing through it. The paint is fading away, and even some of the sealed cracks are reopening.
The runway is also covered in tire tracks. It was very strange to stand on a decommissioned runway like this. It feels very wrong to stand on a runway, even though it’s been dead for the better part of a decade.
The low, white buildings off by the ramp are hangars. I didn’t get any pictures of the inside, but peering in through a window, it’s strange. There’s a random assortment of mechanical parts, and an entire wing assembly of what I think might be a Piper, but I couldn’t really tell. There was also a few strange items, like a foosball table and a coffee machine.
Not a lot to say about this picture, just a a cool perspective.
On our way out, peeked into this FBO building. The door was kicked in (on the runway side). I decided not to go in, since it seemed to have turned into a giant spider party house, but it seemed like it would have been a lovely place to hang out back in the day. An ancient computer terminal, a couch, and a little kitchenette.
Not much else to say about this airport. If you’re ever in the area, it’s worth checking out.